Moscow - In the Polish capital of Warsaw a fortnight ago, Igor Kolomoisky met secretly with Yulia Tymoshenko. The reason for the secrecy is the terms of exchange which they discussed.

These include Tymoshenko’s agreement that if she is elected president in Kiev in eight months’ time with Kolomoisky’s support, he will get relief from Ukrainian state pursuit of billions of his dollars currently frozen on British court orders. Kolomoisky wants relief from prosecution by the Ukrainian courts and the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) for theft, fraud and unjust enrichment of $1,911,877,385 from Privatbank, which Kolomoisky lost control of in a state takeover in December 2016.

For the story of the looting of Privatbank, and the diversion of the International Monetary Fund’s Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ElA) loans to the NBU, and from there to Privatbank, read this archive.

People all over the world have had enough. Even certain groups inside the imperialist countries, have had enough.

It has been happening for quite some time, but no one has been paying much attention: Western academia, mainstream media, and the most visible propagandists, were trying to convince the world that:

1) ideology has died, or at least became irrelevant

2) in case it did not die, the Left is actually… hold your breath… right-wing!

Especially the Left that is holding power, particularly in Asia and in Latin America, is being ‘re-defined’ in London, Paris and Washington.

The Western propaganda gurus are apparently rejuvenated, lately, as there are great budgets available to them, in the United States, United Kingdom, and elsewhere. They are openly told to go after certain countries, particularly Russia, China and Iran.

This is an extremely complex but important development. You see, the West has been losing, and so has capitalism and especially imperialism, which is synonymous with neo-colonialism.

The image of a grieving mother orca cradling her dead calf off Canada’s west coast is hitting media around the world, drawing critical attention to the Trudeau government’s decision to buy a pipeline that will drive up tanker traffic through the region.

Coast Protectors is urging supporters to tweet Trudeau immediately, after his own government acknowledged the risks the orcas face due to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

“The Canadian government has admitted the Southern Resident Killer Whales face extirpation (local extinction) due to the increase of oil tankers through the Salish Sea,” the organization states.

“In 2016, Canada’s National Energy Board stated in a report that Trans Mountain ‘is likely to result in significant adverse effects to the southern resident killer whale.’”

Photo: Centre for Whale Research/Facebook

And now, “off the coast of British Columbia Canada, 75 Southern Resident Whales are slowly dying from a lack of Chinook salmon, their main food source since time immemorial,” Coast Protectors adds. “Salmon dams, shipping noise, and pollution are killing the whales—and the Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project will be the final nail in their coffin.”

Israel’s underwater barrier designed to further blockade the besieged Gaza Strip

Israel’s Ministry of Defence yesterday released the first images of its sea barrier designed to further blockade the besieged Gaza Strip. The barrier is located on Zikim beach, approximately three kilometres from Gaza’s northern frontier.

The project is slated to be completed by the end of 2018 and is likely to cost an estimated 25 million shekels ($6.7 million). When completed, the structure will stretch 200 metres out into the Mediterranean Sea, further cutting off the Gaza Strip from Israel.

The barrier will consist of three layers: an underwater base level; a 50-metre-wide sea-level platform made of armoured stone, and a six-metre-high barbed wire fence.

A further fence will also surround the barrier itself as “an additional security measure.” The barrier has been praised by Defence Minister, Avigdor Liebermann. “The construction of the barrier around the Gaza Strip, both on land at sea, is progressing at a rapid and impressive pace,” said the extreme right-winger.

“Every day that passes, our counterterrorism capabilities around the Gaza Strip are growing stronger.”

Injuries are reported, but nothing like the murderous assault suffered by the Turkish flagged, Mavi Marmara, engaged in a similar attempt at penetrating Israel's naval blockade in 2010. Then, ten of the activist aboard were murdered by commandos. I spoke to Canadian photo-journalist, Jon Elmer the day of the Mavi Marmara attack*; he was in the West Bank.

And; George Orwell famously described the battle for a remembering of crimes committed by society's overlords as the Memory War. Today, the reality of wars occurring around the planet seem too removed from the consciousness of the World's most powerful and belligerent nations to illicit the universal outrage and action required of their citizens to end them. We have it seems lost the memory war, and perhaps too surrendered our collective conscience.

This week coming offers another chance; it marks the annual remembrance of the 1945 atomic destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Women in Black will hold their annual vigil in remembrance of Hiroshima-Nagasaki this Tuesday, August 7 at high noon below the tourist information office across from the Empress Hotel.

Terry Wolfwood is Director and co-founder of the Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation, and a writer, photographer, and long-time activist who has traveled from the highlands of Mexico to the gates of Gaza and beyond in pursuit of peace, social justice, and women’s rights. Her articles have appeared at Briarpatch, Peace News, and Third World Resurgence among other places, and she's the local coordinator for Victoria’s Women in Black.

Terry Wolfwood and the power of remembering in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and around our town for the coming week. But first, Jon Elmer and the deadly 2010 taking of the humanitarian relief ship, Mavi Marmara.

Well, my friends, I started to write an essay about the Brussels Declaration issued by NATO at the end of the American shakedown meeting with its allies on July 11, that, beneath the platitudes about “democracy” and “shared values” “defensive alliance,” “respect for international law” and layer upon layer of lies about “Russian aggression” is nothing less than a declaration of war. For that is what that document amounts to. Those interested can go to the NATO website and read it for themselves as paragraph after paragraph of fantasy and distortions are set out in that smug tone the war crowd likes to use to fool the rest of us.

But be prepared for your mind to be polluted with every word.

So I stopped writing that piece, tore it up; and I stopped because how often can any reasonable person write about the same thing, the same war propaganda dished out with breakfast, lunch and dinner on every TV channel, every radio channel, every newspaper, time after time, without being numbed by it all.

Given that Israel had spent over $60,000 a year supporting Syrian rebel group Fursan al-Golan financially, it would make sense for Tel Aviv not only to develop and maintain ties with their commanders, but to rescue those commanders as the Syrian government continues its advance.

Over the weekend, and as MintPress predicted last Tuesday, the controversial Western government-funded “humanitarian” group, the Syrian Civil Defense — popularly known as the White Helmets — were evacuated from southern Syria as the Syrian government continues to gain ground in its offensive throughout the country’s southwest.

However, sources from within the Syrian opposition have revealed that the White Helmets were not the only ones evacuated from Syrian territory, as four top “rebel” commanders were also among the evacuees, undermining the heavily promoted narrative that the evacuation was purely “humanitarian” in nature.

According to Al Masdar News, four rebel commanders were evacuated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which oversaw the evacuation operation: Moaz Nassar and Abu Rateb, of Fursan al-Golan (the Knights of Golan); Ahmad Nahs, of Alwiyat Saif al-Sham (Sword of al-Sham); and Alaa al-Halaki; of Jaish Ababeel. Al Masdar’s sources also stated that those same four commanders had previously been recruited by Israeli intelligence early in the conflict and had maintained ties with the Mossad over the years.

Last week the Trudeau government announced Canada would provide refuge for members of the White Helmets and their families. The announcement came as a still unknown number of the group were evacuating southern Syria via the Occupied Golan and Israel.

Eva Bartlett is an independent Canadian journalist and activist who has lived in and reported from Gaza and Syria over the last decade.

She has been one of the few Western witnesses of the destruction of war from where Western missiles and bombs land, and one of even fewer to fix properly the responsibility on those firing and dropping them. Eva is recently returned from her seventh foray into Syria.

Eva Bartlett in the first half.

And; buoyed perhaps by his early days North Korean diplomatic success, Donald Trump has again resorted to Twitter to launch a bellicose attack against Iran, making, as he did against Kim Jong Un, thinly veiled threats of nuclear annihilation. But, Iran is not Korea, and in the context of a middle east already aflame, the American president may be painting himself into a corner leading to yet another war.

David Swanson is a peace and political justice activist, journalist, radio host, and author whose book titles include: ‘War No More: The Case for Abolition,’ ‘When the World Outlawed War,’ ‘War Is a Lie,’ and ‘The Military Industrial Complex at 50’ among others. He’s director of WorldBeyondWar.org whose annual confab Designing a World Beyond War: Legalizing Peace takes place in Toronto this September. Find out more at: #NoWar2018. David also blogs at Let’s Try Democracy (DavidSwanson.org), WarIsACrime.org, and hosts the public affairs program, Talk Nation Radio.

David Swanson and getting beyond war in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Eva Bartlett and the White Helmets Canada-bound.

These last years have been momentous ones in the Middle East. While wars and rumours of war abound and millions flee their homes, scattered to the winds in search of safe haven, the need for peace and reconciliation has never been greater.

In times of yore the olive branch was extended to ones enemy as a sign of good faith; and today, Palestine Peace Awareness Inc, the Canadian non-profit organization known colloquially as "Zatoun" is doing just that.

Zatoun hopes, they say, to transcend the abstract, geopolitical context of the Palestine-Israel situation, focusing instead on people and the ordinary, everyday lives they must lead.

Robert Massoud is a Palestinian-Canadian whose family immigrated to Canada when he was a child. He is the founder of Zatoun, an organization which imports fair trade Olive Oil from the West Bank to provide market opportunities for Palestinian goods, and works to bring a more accurate representation of life in Palestine.

Robert Massoud in the first half.

And; last week Justin Trudeau announced more Canadian troops would be sent to war ravaged Iraq. This adds to a growing global Canadian military presence. Whether "training" missions in Ukraine, or participating in Joint Task Forces like the one in Iraq, Canadian Forces are no longer the Pearsonian Peacekeepers of old. Today there are myriad "operations" in theatres from Fiji to Latvia, and now too a return to Africa with Operation PRESENCE in Mali.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist, essayist, and author. His articles appear at Dissident Voice, The Palestine Chronicle, Rabble.ca, and Pacific Free Press among other places. Some of his nine book titles include: 'A Propaganda System—How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation', 'Canada in Africa — 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation', and 'The Ugly Canadian — Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy'.

Yves Engler in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin highlighting some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Robert Massoud and olives for peace in Palestine.

In response to Ukrainian Canadian Congress campaigning, two NDP MLAs recently convinced the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission to withdraw a brand of Russian vodka from its stores.

Alberta MLAs Deron Bilous and Jessica Littlewood argued that a hammer and sickle logo on a bottle of vodka was “offensive“.

Articulating a growing rightist effort to equate communism with Nazism in Eastern Europe, Ukrainian Canadian Congress Alberta chapter president, Olesia Luciw-Andryjowycz, told the Edmonton Journal that the hammer and sickle was akin to “having a swastika on a bottle of cognac.”

This is not the first attempt by a provincial NDP to ban Russian vodka. In response to the 2014 upheaval in the Ukraine, a minister in the NDP government in Manitoba discussed a provincial ban on Russian vodka.

At the same time, NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo tabled a motion at the Ontario Legislature calling on government-run liquor stores to suspend sales of Russian Standard vodka.

Amsterdam*Max, a year ago we looked back extensively on three years of MH17. Which are for you the most important events and developments over the past year?

Without doubt, liability of the Russian Federation claimed by the Netherlands and Australia and the first firm denial by President Putin. The positions on what really happened can no longer be reconciled and neither party can go back.

Has your view on the disaster changed since last year? Are there any scenarios that you have ticked off? Or maybe there is a scenario that you want to defend?

Everyone seems to know exactly what has happened. But on the basis of what has been disclosed publicly as evidence, I still cannot draw any definitive conclusions.

Israel announced Monday it will seal the Kerem Shalom commercial border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. This means Gazans, already suffering a health emergency due to the dozen years-long siege of the refugee enclave, will be subject to even greater privations.

Israel's actions fly in the face of World opinion, and repeated rulings by the United Nations, who released a report last year saying conditions in Gaza are degrading at a rate to make the Strip "unlivable" by 2020.

Benjamin Netanyahu's proclamation comes following four months of weekly Palestinian protest at the barbed wire and earthen berm barrier near Khan Younis, where Israel has responded with a live bullet, open fire policy killing so far more than a hundred and fifty people, (including children, medics, and journalists) and maiming thousands.

The Israeli prime minister said the Kerem Shalom closure was part of a promise to redouble his efforts to "deal with Hamas with a heavier hand."Professor Gregory Shupak is an educator, author, and essayist. Holding a doctorate in Literary Studies, Greg teaches Media Studies at the University of Guelph in Toronto. His analyses of politics and media appear across a variety of outlets online, including: Electronic Intifada, In These Times, Middle East Eye, TeleSUR, and at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting among other places.

His first book, 'The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel, and the Media' is newly released by OR books, who say it, "[L]ays bare the flaws in the way large media organizations present the Palestine–Israel issue... [revealing] ...major fallacies in the fundamental conceptions that underpin their coverage..."

Greg Shupak in the first half.

And; as British Columbia's Site C Dam project bungles along, critics who fought against it, and who's hopes the incoming government would kill it were cruelly dashed by John Horgan's NDP, have not yet begun to give up fighting. They are legion, and their arguments against Site C cite its environmental, economic, constitutional, and geological failures.

Site C Action & Accountability for a dam site too far in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Greg Shupak and getting the Wrong Story on Palestine right.